


Bells

by emmaliza



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Denial, F/M, Gen, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Internalized Misogyny, Jealousy, Past Violence, Sister-Sister Relationship, Slut Shaming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 09:55:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11644110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmaliza/pseuds/emmaliza
Summary: Bells ring for horror: sieges, deaths, weddings.Lysa learns of her sister's death.





	Bells

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the valar_morekinks prompt: "Any two aSoIaF sisters- quote prompt. _If you have a sister and she dies, do you stop saying you have one? Or are you always a sister, even when the other half of the equation is gone?_ "

She gets news shortly after she returns from the sept, praying for her boy and Petyr and little else really. The messenger stands nervous as he reads and her lords stand appraising. Her little Robin fidgets in her lap, and she holds him tight lest he break into another fit, and so she doesn't mind he isn't listening. “Oh,” she says flatly.

_They expect me to weep,_  she realises as her lords –  _Jon's_  lords, she realises with fury, they are all still Jon's even as he rots beneath King's Landing – silently judge her. She remembers how she wept when Jon died, tears of terror easily sold as ones of grief, and she knows they all thought her wailing was too much, for none of them ever believed their lord's marriage was a happy one, but she knows they all expect such hysterics from her.  _They think me mad_. The bells from the sept still ring, because of course they do; the bells in this castle have always rung too bloody long, they will barely finish ringing for the hour before it's the quarter-hour, and they have to ring again. If she is mad, it's those bells' fault.

“My lady, I think I speak for all of us when I say, you have my utmost condolences,” says Lyn Corbray, the slimy creep. They must all think she'll grieve her sister like she didn't her husband, enough to let them get their paws on her.  _Never. Petyr will come to me now, I will wait for him._  She doesn't want to grieve Cat.  _It was her own damn fault anyway. She didn't have to drag the Imp to my doorstep._  Lysa would have just thrown him from the Moon Door, but of course he won his freedom and so she couldn't, not with Cat there, always watching, always judging, always so good...  _Cat..._

“Your sister was a good woman, my lady,” says Nestor Royce. “Gentle, yet strong, and kind. She will be missed.”

Lysa could scream at him.  _You think she's better than me too!_  Of course he does, everyone has always thought Cat is better than her, why would Cat being a rotting corpse change that? The Royces blame her, she knows they do, they think she dishonoured her blood by not joining her nephew's side of the war.  _Family, duty, honour._  She remembers little Robb, barely, when he was just a tiny sack of flesh, crying all night and keeping her from sleep.  _What do you have to cry about?_  she thought as she wept into her pillow, her own womb barren and empty, seeming ever more so for her sister's fertility. As she heard him wail she thought she would never have a son to fuss and care for like Cat did, and she could not look at him.  _But I was wrong,_  she reminds herself, holding her boy closer to her.  _I have my Sweetrobin. He is all I need._

What the Freys did to her nephew's body was abhorrent, of course, but it is no concern of hers.  _He was Cat's son. It's all her fault. She should have known what the Lannisters would do to a traitor. She should have talked him of it. She got her own throat slit._

Those bells are too fucking loud. She can hardly think. Lord Royce is such a hypocrite though; she's sure he's secretly all too glad the Starks are gone, he thinks he can press his claim to Winterfell now, since some Stark lord a dozen generations ago foisted a spare daughter off on his family. Or... did that woman have a son, or only daughters? Does Lord Nestor's line come from her or not? She can't remember.

Jon always tried to teach her these things, with a look of resignation when she inevitably couldn't follow along. He'd never call her stupid to her  _face_ , oh no, but it wasn't hard to gather his meaning.

Lysa realises she hasn't spoken in a few minutes, and she ought to respond to the statement somehow. “...She is dead. I would rather not speak of her,” she says, and can barely hear the murmur of discontent beneath those bells.  _They think I should want vengeance. But I_ have _vengeance._  Yes, that's what this is, because it was all Cat's fault: if Cat didn't all but throw herself at Petyr, even when she had a noble and handsome betrothed of her own, if Cat wasn't a greedy whore, Petyr would have loved Lysa more even then. He wouldn't have fought that stupid duel and Father wouldn't have sent him away. He'd have let him wed her, and he wouldn't have fed her poison and shipped her off to an old man; he'd have let him wed her, and she and Petyr would have a dozen babes to their names. It was all Cat.

So Lysa need not feel guilty.

But Lysa has all she wants now: she has her babe, and she is free of her awful husband, and Petyr will come to her, she knows he will. And Cat has nothing, her love and her babes torn from her, one by one, like Lysa's love was torn from her, like her babes were turned into nothing but blood. And now Cat lies cold and dead in the Trident, to rot into the water and become part of the Riverlands that were always so proud of her, that were never proud of Lysa.

After all, she isn't a Tully anymore, is she? That's what she told herself as she cast Father's letters into the fire. She was Lady Arryn now, since he had poisoned the Tully inside her and sold her to another man, so lying to Cat in that letter was just like lying to the Vale, to the court, to any stranger. Cat wasn't her sister anymore. Cat wasn't the one who brought her back to the riverbank when they'd first learnt to swim, and Lysa had gone too far out and panicked, and almost drowned. Cat wasn't the one who'd helped her learn when she couldn't get her head around the Blackfyre Rebellion, and the look Father gave her when she mixed up Daemon and Daeron made her cry. Cat wasn't the one who, still shaking with nerves herself, kissed her cheek and told her she had to be brave before they both went into the sept to wed.  _Cat..._

Lysa killed her husband, but not her sister, that doesn't make her a kinslayer. Cat did it all to herself. Lysa only wrote a letter.

So why won't those bloody bells shut up?

Lysa wipes a tear from her face, and turns to her son. He is her true family, her only family, until she and Petyr wed. “Sweetling, are you hungry?” she asks, and Sweetrobin nods eagerly.

Her lords all turn their heads from the display, disgusted and unnerved.  _Fools. They don't understand mothering._  Her son suckles and Lysa finally starts to relax, the bells fading from her earshot. He bites some, but she doesn't mind. This is what she's for, she thinks, to keep her baby boy strong and healthy. She and her son will  _live_ , not like Cat and her babes, and Lysa thinks in this way, she has finally trumped her sister.

He sucks until her teats turn red, red as blood, red as her hair, red as her sister's neck.

Then the bells ring again.


End file.
